With Her Guard Down
by AnotherStupidNickname
Summary: People don't change.


**Author's Note: English is not my first language. If you spot any mistakes (especially colloquialisms, they're not my forte), don't hesitate to tell me. Any and all corrections might improve my grade average. Enjoy.**

**Disclaimer: I do not own NCIS. Duh.**

She resigned from Mossad, because… well.

Late at night, she was watching a movie about a woman trying to find the reason for her existence. Ziva thought that was a really stupid subject to make a movie about. (Later, when she brings it up in conversation, Tony says the woman must have been Meryl Streep, because Meryl Streep does movies like that.)

No, Ziva resigned from Mossad because there was nothing keeping her there. Not because her father sent her to Somalia to die. Not because her father sent her to D.C. to kill her brother (his _son_, damn it). Not that it doesn't bother her. It does.

It must have been the little things that pulled the foundation out from underneath their feet.

Sweet words and pats on the head, loving lectures and pride in his eyes. And then the lies, the expectations, the barely concealed calculation and simply the fact that he was never _there_. The way he looked at her and her brother and her sister, as if assessing their value. The fact that they had never been worth more than any of his soldiers.

Hate is not the opposite of love, indifference is. Ziva David will never be indifferent to her father.

* * *

><p>She cooks some kind of stew for the team one night. Tony asks if it's Jewish and she says that, no, it's Arab, actually. They don't what to make of it, really, except for Gibbs who still hears that gunshot in his basement. It echoes of betrayal and disbelief and lost little sisters.<p>

Ducky remarks that it tastes unusual in that charming, non-judgmental way of his.

"Orange juice," she says and sits down with a sad smile and unguarded eyes.

Ziva David sighs and tells a story about a seven-year-old girl who is learning to read Arab recipes and a teenage brother, the little fool, who believed her words. And just like that, lime juice turns into orange juice and teaspoons into tablespoons and the result tastes delicious.

The room is too silent, but that comes as no surprise. Gibbs thinks that maybe the little girl and the little boy would have been better off not believing each other so completely (not with Arab recipes nor with alleged loyalties). Abby just really, really wishes Kate were here.

Most of all, she has never shared so much (so easily) with them. One wall down. Maybe not that many more left to go.

* * *

><p>Ziva David's life has always been on the fast track. Grow up fast, learn fast, and before she knows it, her brother is away in Edinburgh and she is enlisted in the IDF, throwing knives at living, breathing objects. Then Mossad, training, shooting, mission accomplished, and by the way, she really likes the sound of 'Officer David'.<p>

Then she's at NCIS with some degree of permanence (she does not actually allow herself to think of it that way) and sees normal people who investigate and interrogate and protect their country and all that moral stuff and afterwards they go home to their normal lives and families and hobbies. Ziva David has never felt so inadequate.

* * *

><p>She has killed her brother and nothing, no amount of words and talking and coping, can change that.<p>

She has also not killed him just to save Gibbs ("_you were nothing"_) and she knows that. She wasn't trying to convince anybody but Gibbs when she spoke that half-lie (because half-truth doesn't quite cover it). Clichés do not define her.

She was acting on orders. She was acting on instinct (protect the innocent, and sometimes water might just be thicker than blood). He (he has a name, but 'Ari' tends to clog her brain with foggy memories and promises no one kept, so she tries to avoid it altogether) had turned his back on everything good in the world. He had betrayed his country, had betrayed his family (and by family she means herself, because – really – who is she kidding?) by fraternizing with the very people (guilty by association) who had killed their darling sister, and she would be lying to herself if she claimed that there was no anger involved.

* * *

><p>Her father loves her. Even she knows that.<p>

Gibbs does not believe it and for that she is sorry (but she will never tell him). Contrary to popular belief, Gibbs' beliefs and words and deeds are not always her own (she is not Tony). For that she is glad, because if they were, Gibbs would be what her father used to be for her and she will not go there again.

Eli David loves his daughter. He just loves his work more.

* * *

><p>Ray is a step into the right direction, she thinks. Away from too short, dysfunctional romances that are based on convenience and really, really nice hair. Off into loving, deep relationships that don't end in 'So you're leaving?' (or worse, indifference, because indifference is the opposite of love, and she doesn't want to go there, either).<p>

She's quite proud of herself, actually. She took her time getting to know him, she lets him hold her hand and when he rattles off some overly clichéd phrases ("You're everything I've been looking for my whole life.") she doesn't laugh in his face like she wants to. She didn't even jump his bones on the first date. Ziva is really quite proud of herself.

She genuinely likes Ray. Next to him, she feels like she's succeeding at _something_.

* * *

><p>Ziva comes home from work one day and finds that she looks a little bit fake. Work was exhausting and being an American seems to entail getting worked up over things that didn't touch her before. She looks at her painted face in the mirror and remembers her father commenting on her make-up and <em>what are you trying to hide, Ziva? <em>That night, she scrubs it off and takes a shower and afterwards she lets her hair air-dry into frizzy, wild, beautiful curls.

The next morning, she slaps the make-up right back on and flat-irons her hair down her back.

* * *

><p>Not all cold-hearted daddies tell their kids not to cry. Little Ziva simply noticed at some point that her dad had that disappointed look on his face when she cried and that he smiled when she didn't.<p>

* * *

><p>Ray does not know about Tali and Ari. She is not entirely sure that that is a good thing. (She still does not intend to tell him.)<p>

* * *

><p>The Ziva from five years ago feels wrong on her skin. The knife is too heavy, and when she manipulates, she has to think about it. She can see it in their eyes, too. Surprise, surprise, she isn't who she used to be. They remain carefully neutral about the whole thing (around her) and that's what scares her a little bit.<p>

So she gets used to the feeling of the knife at her hip again. The walls stay down, though, because the fresh air feels nice on her face.

* * *

><p>She has been an investigator for quite some time now, but she was born a killer.<p>

* * *

><p>She is not Kelly, and Gibbs knows that. What Gibbs doesn't know is that he will never be like a father for her (<em>"the closest thing"<em>) because Ziva can never be like a daughter to him. To anyone. She has been many things in her life (a killer, a friend, a liar, a sister, all of them at the same time) but she has never been a daughter.

* * *

><p>The elevator they are trapped in reminds her of her cell (hers, because she marked it with her blood and her tears and her screams) and she lets McGee's warm presence comfort her. Maybe she is growing soft after all.<p>

* * *

><p>She still lies, a lot, but it's a conscious thing. She omits, leaves them in the dark, and the silence that follows has a meaning now.<p>

Ziva David is growing soft. And enjoying it. She loves being American and she loves America. She starts to trust the people she works with (lives with) and she accepts them as family. She laughs more, she talks more and she breathes more freely.

Her walls are crumbling and she lets them. But those walls are also the foundation she is built upon (a careful construction, courtesy of Eli David) and maybe that is her first mistake.


End file.
